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Playing Music via USB in Prius C

Discussion in 'Prius c Audio and Electronics' started by kndy, Aug 5, 2016.

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  1. kndy

    kndy Member

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    Hi everyone,

    A few quick questions regarding using a USB stick on a Prius C. As my latest iPod has died, I decided to focus on using a USB stick.

    a) Why do some album covers show up and some don't. I play the MP3 on my iTunes, Windows Media Player or VLC Player and I see the album cover, but some won't show on the stock radio (2015 Prius C).

    b) What audio file formats have you been able to play via USB?

    c) Has anyone found ways to have non-English text display for playback? I listen to a lot of Japanese, Korean and Chinese pop music, so it kind of sucks of having to rename nearly every artist/band name, track title and album title as it becomes quite tedious for each track.

    D) Currently, I am using a 4GB stick and it takes a little while each time the playlist has to refresh, each time I start my car. But I would like to move up to a 32GB or 64GB USB stick. But I was wondering how long the wait time is for the playlist refresh? If it's too much, then I'll probably use a 8GB or 16GB. And any speed differences on a Prius USB if it was USB 2.0 or 3.0?

    Thanks in advance!!!
     
  2. Chris92057

    Chris92057 Junior Member

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  3. kndy

    kndy Member

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    An Update:

    a) Why do some album covers show up and some don't. I play the MP3 on my iTunes, Windows Media Player or VLC Player and I see the album cover, but some won't show on the stock radio (2015 Prius C).
    ==
    I fixed the cover issue, making sure that iTunes or via VLC shows the correct album covers.

    b) What audio file formats have you been able to play via USB?
    ==
    I haven't tried many but notice that .mp3, .m4a didn't, didn't try .wav, .aiff or flac


    c) Has anyone found ways to have non-English text display for playback? I listen to a lot of Japanese, Korean and Chinese pop music, so it kind of sucks of having to rename nearly every artist/band name, track title and album title as it becomes quite tedious for each track.
    ==
    There's no way, so I ended up romanizing titles and names. It's tedious but easier for me to do a straight title and album track on iTunes all at once. For this, I gave artists or bands with multiple albums the same name as I would rather have one playlist of that artist or band rather it being separated by albums.

    D) Currently, I am using a 4GB stick and it takes a little while each time the playlist has to refresh, each time I start my car. But I would like to move up to a 32GB or 64GB USB stick. But I was wondering how long the wait time is for the playlist refresh? If it's too much, then I'll probably use a 8GB or 16GB. And any speed differences on a Prius USB if it was USB 2.0 or 3.0?
    ==
    I only used 2.0 USB, not 3.0...

    4GB - 1 Minute Wait for song list to show up
    8GB - 2.5 Minute Wait for song list to show up
    16GB - 4 Minute (almost 5 minutes) for the song list to show up

    Your Mileage will vary of how much different bands/artists, etc. you put on there, I put a whole variety to fill up each stick to see how long things would take.

    While I barely could tolerate the 4-5 minute wait time for the song list to show up for the 16GB, it's what I will be using primarily for my music and 8GB and 4GB for my audiobooks/podcasts, definitely don't want to use a 32GB or 64GB or else I would be waiting forever.
     
    #3 kndy, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2016
  4. rjdriver

    rjdriver Active Member

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    I am curious about "this" wait you are discussing. I am using a 16 GB USB drive in my C with a couple hundred mp3s on it which currently uses up about half the drive. So lets say 8 GBs of music. There is only about a 5 second wait before I can us it after starting the car. If I was using the drive when I last shut down the car, it will start playing wherever it left off on restart even before the Toyota logo is gone off the display.

    There is the usual wait of about 1 minute before the vehicle will allow the use of voice commands for the music, and there is a short syncing that goes on the first time I plug in the drive after loading additional songs on it. But other than that, it's only about 5 seconds.

    So I am confused by the long waits you mention.
     
  5. kndy

    kndy Member

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    For the 16GB, I have possibly several thousand on there. But I believe its YMMV because some MP3 files sizes are larger than others (ie. podcasts, audio books, 2 hour straight play remixes, etc.) Also, I don't know if there are differences of 3.0/2.0 USB drive and if certain brands show differences in read speed.

    It's important to note that for the 4GB I used Sansdisk, for 8GB I used PNY and for 16GB I used Verbatim. All cheap versions...nothing significant.

    The long load times is for the artist/song lists to be generated when it's first initialized when the USB is plugged in. It takes awhile to load. If you remove the USB and plug it in, for me, I have to wait around 4 minutes.

    It will play a song right when you start (I'm guessing the first song that was saved on the USB) but you can't select an artist or a song until the list is fully generated.

    Ideally, you want to leave your USB plugged in and so it remembers the first song you played and such and the wait time for loading artists/albums lists are decreased to around a minute.
     
  6. rjdriver

    rjdriver Active Member

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    That may be the key to explain why we are having different experiences. My 16GB SanDisk never leaves the slot unless I am adding new music. Which is seldom. But since I voice command everything, the song list isn't critical to me.
     
  7. kndy

    kndy Member

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    Cool! So, your stereo allows for voice command to select artists and songs?
     
  8. DonDNH

    DonDNH Senior Member

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    Are you using high speed memory sticks? Cheap ones are generally older technology. Get a new 4GB USB 3.0 memory stick and see if it improves your response times.
     
  9. rjdriver

    rjdriver Active Member

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    Artist, song, album, and genre. "Play The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed", and it starts playing the songs in random order, for example.
     
  10. kndy

    kndy Member

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    That's cool and convenient. Do the Prius C3's and the C4's have the better Entune stereos with voice recognition (is it the nav based stereos)?
     
  11. kndy

    kndy Member

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    Before I bought the cheap ones, I bought a 3.0 memory stick but it was a 64GB (Before I learned about the lag). I'll probably get an 8GB or 16GB 3.0 stick to test.
     
  12. Sean Nelson

    Sean Nelson Active Member

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    It's a fair suggestion, but I'd be really, really surprised if the USB slot for the Prius's infotainment system runs at USB 3.0 speeds.
     
  13. rjdriver

    rjdriver Active Member

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    At least for my year, 2012, the 3 and 4 trim levels had the full Entune with nav . I don't think 1 and 2 even had a display, just a standard radio/CD player. But those options at each trim level changed in more recent years. I probably use the Genre command most often. Very convenient.
     
  14. DonDNH

    DonDNH Senior Member

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    I would doubt we have USB 3.0 as well, but cheap sticks might not even have USB 2.
     
  15. Sean Nelson

    Sean Nelson Active Member

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    USB 2.0 has been with us for over 15 years now, I really doubt there's any modern equipment that's still using 1.x, because the semiconductor manufacturers probably haven't been making components for it for a decade or more. You might be able to find some ancient 4MB USB flash drive that uses 1.x, but anything made today will use at least USB 2.0.
     
  16. pulltab

    pulltab Junior Member

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    I use San Disk "Cruzer Blade" 16GB 2.0 ....$5.00 at Wal Mart for my C1. Really small footprint, does not stick out from USB port very far, maybe an inch. Comes in a variety of colors, and can takes hundreds of songs.

    And you are correct, some album covers show up on the screen and some not. There is a short lag time for load up into the "library", and I also do not take out the drive unless updating/adding songs. The last song plays instantly for playback when I start the car.

    I am a little jealous that I cannot just "Call for an artist and/or song" like you Entune folks can. That is pretty cool. Not sure if I would have paid the extra $$$ for that perk, however.
     
  17. rjdriver

    rjdriver Active Member

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    Look for the SanDisc Cruzer Fit on Amazon. Its even shorter. All memory with just a tiny little stub of a handle. Hardly bigger than the USB socket itself.

    upload_2016-8-22_17-53-10.png
     
  18. rjdriver

    rjdriver Active Member

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  19. kndy

    kndy Member

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    We used Sandisk Cruzers for work. I don't use them anymore because I have seen the plastic part come off completely leaving the metal in the USB port and it was a pain removing. But I wanted something I can easily pull out.

    Right now my small OCD has me going through the motions of having to fix things on the MP3's (I dislike not seeing the album covers on tracks, found myself wanting to make the album tracks all the same, romanizing text for foreign tracks that are not displaying, etc.)
     
  20. kndy

    kndy Member

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    [what's going on with the forum and double posts...ahhh!]
     
    #20 kndy, Aug 25, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2016